CHAPTER 3 ; TRIAL

[themodsgrimm]

The Story Continues... CHAPTER 3 - WEEK 329 Narrators Remain ; Wakey wakey, naughty murder children. It's a lovely Saturday, after all. Breakfast is served piping hot at its usual time and all of the evidence has been removed from the scenes of yesterday. No matter how you choose to spent your morning though, the clock will begin to chime the moment both hands reach the large, ornate twelve. Before your eyes materializes a door...but not just any door. Unlike the door leading to the festival, this door sits primly and properly right in front of the foyer. Whether you exit the castle on your own or you feel a friendly, invisible push, you begin to walk under an arc of wisterias. Behind you, the clock continues to chime with every step you take. By the time the time the clock strikes twelve, you've entered a beautiful garden. In front of you is a long table, 19 seats on each side. Around the garden are several glass cases containing evidence collected yesterday. As noon intensifies on the sun-shaped clock, you'll find Tiger at the head of the table, a glass-covered rose near her right hand. Tick tock, Narrators. You have nine hours to deliberate. Throughout today's trial, the delightful, delectable scent of freshly brewed coffee will linger in the air though there will be no coffee present. Instead, today's trial snacks include...finger foods. Welcome to your trial post! Please see here for the OOC summary of events from yesterday's investigation. In addition, please be sure to vote! Please see the voting page on how to vote, as we will have two special things to vote for. Voting will close at 9pm EST/6pm PST! If you have any questions, please ask on our Discord server or ping us on plurk. Please direct pings for the NPC to Danielle (entrappings), as she will be taking point for today's NPC, and the moderator team will be on deck for all other questions. full navigation. locations taken (statuses) stories (profiles) info & faq wishing well private conversations

Comments

[resumed]

If that's true, then why space them out and risk someone finding the dagger before Friday morning?

[randori]

Hey— yeah! You said you could feel stuff, right? Could you? Thursday or Friday?

[resumed]

[...well.]

...yes.

[randori]

And?

[ hey??? ]

[resumed]

And...it was something on Thursday morning. Really early. And it was twice as bad on Friday morning.

[randori]

Can you tell the exact times...? Or where, or who?

[resumed]

[He shakes his head.] I told you it was only half, Natsuo. It was Hijikata first...but with Fitzgerald and Monika they were so close together I couldn't tell where one started and the other began. It was just very sudden compared to when Hijikata's appeared.

[concasse]

[... ???

Like he's sorry if Natsuo just outed this guy's ability in some way, but Sanji is just staring at all of this.]

You can "feel stuff?"

[resumed]

[Hm.]

Sort of? It's...I can tell when someone's life is in danger, but it doesn't always work to pinpoint if it'll be a death or if it'll just be a case like last week when everyone went into the maze and into the woods.

[So yeah, last week was super fun, thanks assholes.]

[randori]

Hijikata's wasn't sudden...? Like, he was in danger for a long time, but Fitzgerald and Monika were both close...? Does that mean they died suddenly, or they weren't planned to die until they died?

[resumed]

[A shake of his head.]

Hijikata's was like...on a scale of one to ten, it was a slow burn throughout the day. With Fitzgerald and Monika...his was more than hers are first. It's hard to explain, those two mixed together. But I do believe the deaths must have been planned otherwise it wouldn't have been that strong at all.

[faceripper]

[ He shakes his head ]

I've no idea. That's what I find perplexing, honestly. It was by Francis, wasn't it?

[resumed]

Yeah. Shirasu found it not too far from his body and when Cardia and I looked he was covered in cuts and stab wounds.

[faceripper]

I would almost think that perhaps it was some encounter gone quite sour, if not for the fact that he was stabbed too.

[ He sighs and shakes his head ]

Usually there's more of an effort made to hide these things.

[resumed]

When we looked at the body there were stabs in the back and also in the front, so whoever got to Fitz really wasn't playing around. Though it's impressive his fingers were cut off and he kept going. Or we can assume, anyway. Most people wouldn't die from losing fingers but the distance between them and his final resting place isn't short.

[faceripper]

So he tried to flee, most likely.

[ Fane pauses thoughtfully as he thinks through where various things were found, and after a thoughtful hum, adds: ]

Maybe he thought he could hide in that disappearing room?

[resumed]

Do we know if he spent time in the room before Friday? I didn't know about the practice room until Shirasu pointed it out.

[faceripper]

[ He shrugs and shakes his head ]

No idea. I didn't know about it, since I'm not exactly musically inclined.

[ But he does look to Ion. Maybe he'll know? ]

[fonlines]

-- I've never seen my partner in the music room during the few days it's been open.

[ and he's spent a fair amount of time in it? he was filling the halls with ominous organ playing and everything. ]

Granted, I cannot account for the entirety of the week, but this is all I can offer.

[resumed]

[...good point, he did see Ion in the music hall this week so. Good call, Fane.]

[fonlines]

Why would anyone seek to trap themselves in a room that goes nowhere?

[ those rooms don't go anywhere. ]

I can think of different reasons that might involve sound being dampened and missing... extremities...

[ unfortunately, none of them are nice, and ion kind of doesn't want to think about it. ]

[vigilantics]

If they didn't see him go in it, I could see the possibility.

[fonlines]

[ Ion just purses his lips. It doesn't really sound like something he'd expect from Fitzgerald, but he can't discount it entirely. ]

[faceripper]

[ He shakes his head, and you can hear the frown in his voice ]

That... is a possibility. However, wasn't the, er, "removal" fairly clean?

[ a beat, and then, ]

...I suppose they could have been quite bad at torture if that was the intent, though.

[fonlines]

I would hope that many of us here are not very well versed in information extraction...

[ that's

what he's going to call it, yes. ah, politics. ]

It may be poor technique, but we've already put out several other theories that don't seem to be going anywhere. [ 'maybe he was making a rude gesture' ] This is one that I could see as a little more feasible, even if flawed.